The bookstore chain said sales fell 8% and losses soared. The reason: There was no new Harry Potter installment this year. “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” hit stores during the same period last year.

The company said it expects sales will be flat over the final six months of its current fiscal year. But that forecast did little to assure investors, as the stock fell 10% in early trading following the report, leaving shares down 37% so far this year.

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[T]he company has been reporting more annual losses than profits in recent years, and has lost a total of $345 million since early 2010.

6 Comments to “Barnes & Noble losses: Blame it on Harry Potter”

B&N should blame it on publishers for not getting them the latest ‘man left on Mars’ book. It’s out there, and maybe a dozen more just as good. But B&N won’t be seeing them either.

For a good book to make it onto B&N’s shelves the writer has to try to sell it to an agent, who then has to sell it to a publisher, who has to not only notice it but like it before they hit their quota for that time. If the publisher loves it the writer then has to sign it over, by way of a usually bad contract with very little cash offered before there will be any editing or cover drummed up. A year or three later the book may appear at B&N.

What’s happening far more often these days is the writer forgoes the above waste of time, pays or has friends help them do the editing and cover and offer it up as an ebook.

Any business that requires someone else strike a ‘home run’ has a problem when those heavy hitters are either in slumps or playing on other fields.

And in their infinite wisdom, BN has terminated the publishing accounts of some Indies who sell very well.

Is this an incomprehensible variation of Brewster’s Millions where they are trying to see how fast it takes to go out of business? Because they are doing just that–sinking like a stone for a variety of poor decisions.